


Candle Cove Myths Exposed and Theories Considered

by James_Bimbledy



Category: Arthurian Mythology, Aztec Religion, Candle Cove, Creepypasta - Fandom, Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 15:46:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10193306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/James_Bimbledy/pseuds/James_Bimbledy
Summary: A post found on an internet demonology forum purports to reveal the truth about Candle Cove.





	

From: Christian Demonology Forum

Candle Cove Myths Exposed and Theories Considered  
Prepared by: jesusislordrevelations1920

1\. Common Myths and Unverified Memories  
2\. Primary Characters  
3\. Other Pirates  
4\. Other Characters

1\. Common Myths and Unverified Memories

Myth: Candle Cove is not a real television program.

Myth: Candle Cove can’t be recorded. Church organizations in the US and other nations have collected numerous clips of Candle Cove. More are being found every year or so.

Myth: It is safe for an adult to watch Candle Cove. If you think that you may have a genuine clip from Candle Cove, do not watch it yourself. Do not delete or destroy the clip either. Speak to your minister or Christian religious advisor about appropriate Christian church organizations to turn the clip over to.

Myth: Children who watch Candle Cove become killers. This is untrue and grossly unfair to the victims of Candle Cove. Their demons are turned inward. They often suffer from severe nightmares, depression, social alienation, and mental illness, and may commit suicide. Treating them as dangerous monsters is the final cruelty to people who have suffered enough. Paul says, “He that loveth his neighbour hath fulfilled the law” (Romans, 13:8).

Unverified: Candle Cove is hidden in television static. Perhaps the most popular legend about Candle Cove is that it appears to children on what adults see as the static of dead channels. This is impossible to verify without conducting unethical experiments on children. Some adults with Candle Cove memories insist that the program was broadcast as cheap filler on regional television stations in the early 1970s, often under variant titles like Pirates of Candle Cove or Pirates Ahoy! Peter N. states, “I vividly remember Andy Summers in a pirate hat and fake beard, standing with one leg up in big black boots and he was holding a plastic scimitar. He said something like, “Arr matey! Hitch your mainsail and splice your booty! It be Pirates Ahoy!” The duck had a pirate hat too and an eyepatch. They only showed about three episodes of Pirates Ahoy!, then stopped showing it and never mentioning it again. I was glad when they stopped. I didn’t like it.”

Alternatively, a signal telecast by a pirate television station (no pun intended) could easily be prone to fading in and out of static. Pirate television has certainly been involved in re-telecasts of the show in later decades. Jesus Christ warns us, “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Matthew 7:15).

Alternatively, static could well be the medium of Satan. Television static is mostly the electromagnetic echoes of the big bang with which God created our universe (Genesis 1:1). If Satan had a message for humanity from the beginning of time, he might well have written it in television static.

Play it Safe. Do not watch television static or allow children to watch television static.

Myth: Candle Cove has no continuity. Candle Cove has a contradictory continuity and jumbles the order of events in impossible ways. However, while the show often functions through dream-logic, events also often carry over from episode to episode. In fact, ministers have identified at least four major story arcs, commonly known as the Poppy’s Degeneration arc, the Toad King’s Birthday Party arc, the Buried Ones arc, and the King in Yellow arc. It is not clear whether these arcs resolve in sequence or are woven together.

2\. Primary Characters

Janice

Myth: Janice was played by two actresses. A myth persists that Janice was played by two actresses, commonly known as “Brave Janice” and “Scared Janice”. It is easy to make this mistake if you have only seen a few clips of Candle Cove. In fact, this is the same actress in different stages of mental breakdown. The striking change in her physical appearance over time is a result of extreme stress.

Who is Janice? The fact is that nobody knows. There are a number of theories.

There are many grounds for hoping that Janice is not a real child, but rather a demon pretending to be a little girl, or even a mere illusion—a special effects cartoon in Hell’s own CGI. The most obvious reason for doubting that Janice is a real child is that she always treats Candle Cove as absolutely real. Even as she breaks down mentally, she never breaks the fourth wall. As frightened as she becomes of the puppets, she never looks at the puppeteers or shows any awareness that they are there. Even when hysterical, she never leaves the set. In one particularly disturbing clip (clip 3 Bundaberg Tapes, Clip 102 Watchford Tapes), she can be seen crying and trembling as she tries to mollify the Skin-Taker by singing a song to him about being nice. Though her emotional range is horribly human, she in many ways acts more like a character in a children’s show than a real, sane person.

But perhaps Janice is not sane. Another theory states that Janice is a child who suffered a severe psychosis in the early 1970s and fell into a permanently hallucinatory state. Isolated in her own private world, she imagined a reality based on television, then somehow psychically transmitted her hallucinations over television waves (or, in some versions of the theory, doctors extracted the dreams from her mind and transmitted them). A related theory is that Janice is a child who entered a coma. Hallucinating from the lack of sensory input, she imagined some friends her herself in the form of Percy and the other pirates. Her psychic telecast is her unintentional cry for help to the world outside her mind.

Psychic projection might explain the persistent story of adults seeing only static on television screens on which children see Candle Cove. The adults are just not on the same mental wavelength as Janice and other children. The psychic projection theory would also explain why Candle Cove operates by dream-logic. If the psychic projection theory is true, then it is possible that Janice is still alive and television repeats of Candle Cove indicate her reliving the nightmare again and again.

Alternatively, it has been suggested that Janice is a dead child in Hell. Why would a child go to Hell? It is not as unlikely as many people think. A child could go to Hell just by not being Christened, or by not being taught the basic tenets of the Christian religion. Jesus Christ said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:16).

Having said that, if Janice is a damned soul, we would expect her punishment to in some way reflect what she did wrong. But Janice is never shown doing anything wrong: at least, not in any verified clip. While her puppet friends may celebrate her bravery, her most striking characteristic is how kind she is. Like the protagonists of many children’s shows, she helps anyone she comes across who has a problem. She’s always there for her pirate friends, helping Percy to be braver, Pew to cope with his blindness, and Poppy to find rest, just for example. She’s just as eager to aid strangers. For example, she reassembles Patches from his scattered parts, follows the whispered cries for help of the Buried Ones, and insists that Bob the drowned sailor be allowed back onto the Laughingstock. Though Janice is clearly frightened of the Skin-Taker, she repeatedly tries to make friends with him (witness in particular the bizarre musical number “I Want to Be Your Friend” (clip 29 Hoboken Tapes, clip 77 Osaka Tapes). Even when Janice begins to understand something of how dangerous the Skin-Taker is, the only way she can think of dealing with him is being kind to him in an effort to reform him. It is possible that Janice represents a defeated Jesus Christ, overcome by the powers of Satan.

Pirate Percy

Myth: Pirate Percy is not a scary puppet. Pirate Percy, on his own, is quite enough to cause nightmares in children. Constructed from parts of other puppets, his body is mismatched and asymmetrical, and his limbs are ill-fitting. His white porcelain face is babyish, slightly cracked along the enamel, and does not have a moving mouth.

Percy’s most obvious personality trait is his fearfulness and willingness to back down in the face of danger. This fearfulness has often been called “cowardice”, but Percy is possibly the most sensible character on Candle Cove. Percy is right and Janice is wrong about the world in which they live. Their universe is every bit as hostile as Percy fears.

Percy’s second most obvious trait is his loyalty to Janice. If anything can make Percy face up to danger, it is the need to help or save her. He is even capable of thinking of Janice’s safety before his own. He quaveringly asks Spindly Jack, “What kind of monster would kill a little girl? Or a pirate?” (clip 11 Yarmouth Tapes). Still, fear is his strongest emotion. There are horrors too great for Percy to face, even for Janice.

Despite his loyalty to Janice, Percy is as fundamentally amoral as most of the pirates. Janice is sometimes shocked at his willingness to steal, lie and ignore people in need. On more than one occasion when she asks him, “How could you do that?”, he explains, “Why is a pirate a pirate? Because they aaar!” Pirate Pew offers her this same justification to explain why he suggested that the pirates kill the children they’ve taken captive. (On one occasion, the Skin-Taker inverts this motto. When Janice screams at him, “Why are you doing this?”, he answers, “As the Buddha said to the pirates: Why are you suffering? Because you aaar!” This is the only known case in which the Skin-Taker refers to Buddhism. Clip 1, Ash Springs Tapes).

There are hints that Percy has never heard of God. For instance, after Poppy has been given a headstone, Janice asks, “Should we say a prayer?” to which Percy replies, “No. I’m scared of the devil” (clip 34 Yarmouth Tapes). It has often been assumed that Percy means that they should not pray to God for fear of making Satan angry. This is a misinterpretation. Percy means that they should not pray to Satan. When Janice asked him if they should pray, he assumed that she meant praying to Satan.

Myth: Percy always treats Janice like a friend. Candle Cove is always surreal, but the puppets generally maintain their established personalities. However, sometimes, as in the infamous “screaming episode”, madness infects even Pirate Percy. On such occasions, he may simply float back and forth on his strings unresponsively, or may slump in weird positions and spout gibberish, or may even join the other puppets as they chase Janice screaming around the set, thrashing their arms in the air. It is unclear where in the run of Candle Cove Percy’s fits of insanity occur, but tellingly, Janice trusts Percy less and less as the show progresses.

Who is Pirate Percy? Again, there are multiple theories, one being that he is just a generic pirate puppet. Other theories include:

Pirate Percy is Jack Percival (1728-1762), known as “Jolly Jack Percival”, a minor Caribbean pirate. Originally a Yorkshire tanner, he was apprehended by a press-gang and forced to join the British navy. In 1750, he took part in a mutiny aboard the schooner HMS Tavistock, which subsequently turned pirate. Neither a leader nor a warrior, he nevertheless made himself useful on the Tavistock by bluffing a medical background and serving as ship’s doctor. His quackery no doubt resulted in numerous unnecessary deaths and amputations. Eventually, Percival tired of the dangers of pirate life and betrayed his entire crew to the British governor of Jamaica, Sir Henry Hyde (1700-1774). Hyde, a man of unusual brutality, had the crew walled inside a cave and left to starve to death.

The Jack Percival theory explains three things. Firstly, it explains why Pirate Percy is doomed to suffer. He’s cursed for his sins. Secondly, it explains why he’s composed of ill-fitting parts from other dolls. This represents the damage he did to those under his medical care. Thirdly, it explains his fear of enclosed places. He doesn’t want to go inside because he subconsciously realizes that his crewmates died in an enclosed space and may still be waiting for him.

Another theory is that Pirate Percy is, or represents, Sir Percival, the knight of King Arthur’s court who attained the Holy Grail, saving the king and the realm. But Candle Cove inverts this tale of good triumphing over evil by turning Percival into a buccaneer. Instead of Sir Percival, he’s Pirate Percy. He’s abandoned, or never taken on, his quest to find the Holy Grail—that is, to find the grace of God. Instead, he has devoted his life to the quest for material gain and the gathering of treasure. Paul tells us, “Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have” (Hebrews 13:5). Through abandoning the quest to find God, Percy has become lost, empty and afraid, and is easy prey for demonic forces.

Unverified: Pirate Percy’s puppeteer is glimpsed, and turns out to be a terrified child or the corpse of a child.

Unverified: Pirate Percy tells the viewer he’s going to take them on a scary trip. Supposedly, Percy addresses the viewer from the television, telling them that he’s come to take them on a sailing trip, and that they have to go. He warns them that the trip will be very scary and that he himself is very frightened.

The Laughingstock

Myth: The Laughingstock was voiced by Ed Wynn. The voice and laugh of the Laughingstock sound remarkably like those of American comedian Ed Wynn (1886–1966), best known for voicing the Mad Hatter in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland (1951). However, Candle Cove does not appear in Wynn’s filmography, and was probably made after he died. Moreover, he was a star in the 1960s and would never have worked on a cheap children’s television program.

There are a number of theories about the identity of the Laughingstock. One is that the Laughingstock is simply a generic pirate ship. Other theories include:

The Laughingstock is the Flying Dutchman, the legendary ghost ship doomed to sail forever without reaching port. The Dutchman has been periodically seen by sailors since the 17th century, usually just before a disaster happens at sea. It is said to glow with a phosphorescent light and to emanate screams. Sometimes, the ghosts onboard scream messages to the living on other ships, but any who hear these messages go mad.

Alternatively, the Laughingstock is the ship in which the damned are transported to Hell—the ship known to the Greeks as “Gélio Prósopo”, or “Laughing Face”. Made of bloated corpses strapped together, this is the vessel of the demonic ferryman Charon, who takes damned souls across the river Acheron to eternal torment. While Charon can change his appearance, he often takes the form of a cloaked skeleton, like the Skin-Taker. If the Laughingstock is the ship of Charon, it may be that the Skin-Taker is the demon Charon himself.

Alternatively, the Laughingstock is one of the slave ships of the demons the Romans called, “Luna Iumentis”, literally “Moon Devils”. According to Lucretius (99 BC-55 BC), these demons would periodically sail their black galleys down from the outpost they had built on the moon, to trade rubies for human slaves. Lucky slaves sailed off to a life of unimaginable horror on the moon. Unlucky slaves were shipped to Hell, to be damned forever. Luna Iumentis can alter their bodies to take a wide variety of shapes, including ones that are almost human, but they are always covered in a hairless and pallid white skin, even over their mouth and eyes. Paul warns us, “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons” (1 Corinthians 10:21-22).

Horace Horrible

Myth: Horace Horrible has a spring instead of legs and will bounce down into a scene out of nowhere with a cry of “Time for death!” This is a garbled childhood memory of the mustachioed puppet Zebedee from the children’s program The Magic Roundabout (1964-1971), and his catch-cry of “Time for bed!”

Who is Horace Horrible? There are several theories, including the following.

Horace is the anti-Christ. In Islam, it is recorded in the hadith that Ali said of the anti-Christ, “His right eye will be punctured, and his left eye will be raised to his forehead and will be sparkling like a star. Only the believers will be able to read the word "Kafir" [disbeliever], inscribed in bold letters, on his forehead. There will be big mountains of smoke at both front and backsides of his caravan.” It has been argued that the reference to a caravan producing mountains of smoke at both ends is represented by Horace’s short-lived steam-barge, the “Ash Belcher”. If Horace Horrible is the anti-Christ, it is possible that the Skin-Taker is Satan.

Horace is “Horrible Horace” Greeley (1895-1939), infamous New York City slum lord, noted for his trademark monocle, broad moustache, and “devilish” grin. Greeley was despised by his tenants, who accused him of not maintaining his buildings, which they claimed were unsanitary and unsafe. It was widely believed that the influenza deaths of some of his tenants’ children were a direct result of his negligence. He was twice fined by the city, apparently without effect. Greely disappeared in 1939, and while it was speculated that the hated landlord had been murdered, the case was soon dropped. In 1954, Greeley’s tanned skin turned up in a Detroit pawn shop where the owner had kept it for years without realizing what it was. The hide was finally identified as Greeley’s by the small tattoo of a fly on his right upper-arm. Interestingly, Greely was also rumored to have routinely spied on his tenants, a habit that matches Horace’s voyeurism.

Horace is Horace Walpole (1717-1797), British prime-minister and author of the first known work of Satanic fiction in English, The Castle of Otranto (1764). The novel describes the misfortunes of a cursed noble family, persecuted by a ghostly enemy, and culminates in the hero and heroine fleeing to a network of underground caves that hide an ancient temple. Many supernatural scares from Otranto also occur in Candle Cove to terrify Percy or Janice, including lights turning themselves off, doors closing by themselves, and people in paintings moving.

Horace is Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 BC-8 BC), a Roman social climber who wrote poetry under the name “Horace”. Like Horace Horrible, he traded in lies and evil gossip. Born into slavery, Horace mastered the art of using poetry as political propaganda. He could write poetry in praise of a politician, making them look better in the eyes of the public, or write poetry attacking a politician, ruining their image through character-assassination. Managing to buy his own freedom, he made his fortune by selling his skills to the highest bidder, praising any scoundrel who would pay him to, and destroying the reputation of any decent Roman he was paid to attack. He was eventually recruited by the Emperor Augustus (63 BC-17 AD) himself. The first sign that the emperor had decided to execute a wealthy Roman was often the publication of a scathing satire on them by Horace. As Horace grew wealthy and influential, he pretentiously adopted exaggerated airs of being upper-class, much as Horace Horrible pretentiously wears a monocle. According to Pliny (23-79), as senator Marcus Primus slit his wrists after being satirized by Horace, he cursed the poet to wander the Earth after death as an invisible ghost, able to jealously watch the living, but forever barred from participating in life and the pleasures of the flesh that he prized so much. The ghost of Horace supposedly hates the living, and brings them bad fortune and nightmares. King Solomon tells us, “A righteous man hateth lying: but a wicked man is loathsome, and cometh to shame” (Proverbs 13:5).

Horace is the anarchic messenger-demon known to the Egyptians as Nyharuthotep (literally “There is no peace at the gate”). He runs errands for the Skin-Taker not because he has to, but because he enjoys the ensuing chaos and terror. It is speculated that Horace’s monocle represents the single eye of the winged “Haunter of the Dark”, one of Nyharuthotep’s avatars.

Other one-eyed demons that Horace has been identified with include:  
1\. The one-eyed, shape-changing, trickster-magician demon-chief known to the Norse as Odin, who receives the souls of the damned who die in battle. These souls are condemned to eternal warfare.  
2\. The one-eyed, gigantic, man-eating demon known to the Greeks as Polyphemos, son of the sea-demon Poseidon. The connection with the ocean might explain why Horace lives in Candle Cove by the sea. Poseidon, in turn, may be an avatar of the demon known to Polynesians as Katulu, who has power over the ocean and dreams, which would explain Candle Cove’s dream-like narrative structure.  
3\. The one-eyed, nose-less (like Horace) demons known to the Japanese as Hitotsume-kozō. The Hitotsume-kozō love to terrify humans, frequently haunting people with their powers of illusion, just to drive them to suicide.

Theories about Horace’s monocle include:

1\. Horace’s monocle is the Eye of the Graeae. The Graeae are three extremely wizened demonic crones, who have clairvoyant powers, but share one eye between the three of them. According to the Greeks, they must take turns with this eye, passing it back and forth.  
2\. Horace’s monocle is made of Hyades crystals, what the medieval Chinese called “leng glass”. Leng glass was used for cutting in ritual sacrifice (including the skinning of live bears and humans) and for divination. A sorcerer with leng glass was able to use it to see beneath the earth and “beyond the heavens”, viewing strange places and learning magical secrets. Moses instructs us, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” (Exodus 22:18). The use of leng glass might explain how the program Candle Cove can make itself seen on television without being transmitted as a television signal. It might also explain why Horace and his master the Skin-Taker are capable of seeing the viewer.

Unverified: Horace Horrible sings a song with a chorus that begins, “Egad! Pick up the pieces.”

The Skin-Taker

Myth: The Skin-Taker sleeps in a coffin and sometimes wears blue gloves and red shoes. This is a garbled memory of “Skeleton”, a recurring villain from the children’s series Superted (1983-1986), and the source of many childhood nightmares.

Who is the Skin-Taker? There are multiple theories, including:

The Skin-Taker is 19th century serial killer James Dale (1789-1831), captured and hanged in Prescott, Arizona. While still a teenager, he began to shoot Indian children, skin them, and turn the skins into clothes he wore in private, for reasons only known to himself. Somehow, Dale managed to make contact with like-minded individuals, and began to sell his products to rich clients with peculiar tastes. His activities didn’t attract much attention from the authorities as long as he only killed Indians, but when he turned his hand to killing white children, in a spree that started in 1829 and lasted almost two years, the local press demanded action. Dale was tracked down to the modest tailor’s shop he used as a front, where the basement was found to contain an abundance of fragmentary human remains, occult paraphernalia, and a variety of clothes stitched from the skin of children. According to the Liberator, one of the attending officers stated, “I speculate that hell smells like that.” Interestingly, one of Dale’s wealthy clients was one Horace Faulkner, Tucson financier, who purchased several pairs of child-skin gloves. It is not known if Faulkner had a mustache or wore a monocle.

The Skin-Taker is an avatar of Baron Samedi, the Haitian voodoo demon associated with necromancy and the dead. Samedi is a skeleton in a top hat who frequently takes possession of human beings and loves to sow discord and promote debauchery.

The Skin-Taker is one of the shape-changing water-demons known to the Scots as “Selkies”. Selkies impersonate humans and replace individuals in society. They impersonate a victim by skinning them, sloughing off their own skin, and wearing the skin of their victim. It has been said that a Selkie who loses its skin must stalk the night as a skinless monster, forever trying to collect enough skin to cover itself but doomed to never having enough.

The Skin-Taker is a human priest of the reptilian Native American demon Yigg, feared by the Apache, the Arapaho, and other tribes of the West and interior. Yigg, often known as “Father of Serpents”, has dominion over snakes, and priests of Yigg underwent ritual skinning in order to shed like a snake. They would then skin other humans and wear their skins to gain magical powers. Cloaks made of stitched human skin can still be seen in several museums in the Midwest, though others have stopped displaying them for fear of giving offense. Moses warns us, “Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made” (Genesis 3:1).

The Skin-Taker is an avatar of the demon known to the Aztecs as Mictlantecuhtli, who receives the souls of the damned when they enter Hell. Mictlantecuhtli manifests as a skeleton, splattered with blood, wearing an elaborate headdress of owl feathers and a necklace of eyeballs. He is associated with owls, bats, and spiders. The Skin-Taker, likewise, wears elaborate headgear and is associated with owls, bats, and spiders. (Of particular note is clip 17 on the Hoboken Tapes, in which the Skin-Taker allows spiders to crawl over and in him while he slowly slides his jaw open and closed for several minutes.)

The Skin-Taker is the demon known to the Aztecs as Xipe Totec, “Our Lord the Flayed One”, who acts as patron of human sacrifice. He manifests as a skinless man wearing human skin, usually with the skin of the hands hanging down from his raw wrists. He is said to have invented metalworking, war, plague, ritual sacrifice, and torture, and to have skinned himself in order to feed his skin to human witches, giving them powers and visions.

The Skin-Taker is a damned human transformed into a demon by Molech, Grand Duke of Hell. According to the 17th century English demonology manual, the Lesser Key of Solomon, Moloch has power over storms, fertility, and the dead. In particular, he can transform damned humans into demons and condemn them to haunt the Earth, harming the living and driving them to wickedness and madness. These tormented and malicious ghosts generally manifest as decomposing corpses or fleshless skeletons. Moloch himself manifests as a richly-dressed man with three heads: a sheep, a pig, and a goat, each drooling and staring idiotically. None of these heads is capable of speech. Like most demons, he appreciates human sacrifice, but he particularly likes the sacrifice of children. Moses instructs us, “Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that sacrificeth any of his children unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones” (Leviticus 20:2). It has been speculated that if the Skin-Taker serves Molech, then Janice may be a child sacrifice.

Myth: The Skin-Taker invites Janice and Percy to a picnic of human corpses. This is not the Skin-Taker but Oliver, who lives under the graveyard by the Goat Head Woods. He does look quite like a decomposing corpse, but he is not dead. Rather, he is a member of a deformed tribe of humans who has turned to corpse-eating. Having said this, the line between being alive and being dead is notoriously thin on Candle Cove, a show in which even ordinary corpses are perfectly capable of holding conversations (consider, for instance, the repeated scenes of Pirate Pew playing poker with the graves in the graveyard, and Pirate Pamela’s nagging demands to be buried after Horace stabs her to death).

3\. Other Pirates

This is not a complete list.

Pirate Bob. Pirate Bob drowns after falling from the deck of the Laughingstock. Subsequently, he begins to follow the ship at a distance at night, only his head visible above the surface as he bobs in the water. He grows closer each night until he’s within range to start calling out to the ship, asking to be allowed back onboard. The pirates refuse at first, but Janice insists on helping him. There follow a number of semi-random nightmare scenes aboard ship, involving Bob doing things like moaning as he floats through the air dripping water, suddenly vomiting water and seaweed, and screaming things about what happens to the souls of drowned sailors. Bob can sometimes be glimpsed or heard in later episodes, calling to passing ships as he floats in the ocean.

Pirate Hans. Pirate Hans is a squat marionette missing both of his forearms, which are replaced by hooks. He’s presumably based on the evil hook-handed pirate Captain Hook from J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan (1904). However, Hans is a lot less competent than Hook and lacks the initiative to be a villain. He is rarely a ship’s captain (Candle Cove is inconsistent about which characters are crew of the Laughingstock, which have ships of their own, and which just sit around in pubs like the Pieces of Nine and the Jolly Roger). Whereas Captain Hook is terrified by crocodiles, Hans is terrified by anything with tentacles.

Unverified: Pirate Hans later has his head replaced with a hook, rendering him blind like Pew.

Pirate Long John. Pirate Long John appears to be missing much of his lower body, though it isn’t clear how much since he travels in a little arm-propelled cart that he can barely peek out over the sides of. All we see of Long John is the top half of his face and his arms reaching up and out of the cart. He’s presumably based on the villainous one-legged pirate Long John Silver from Robert Louis Stevenson’s seminal 1883 pirate novel Treasure Island.

Pirate Pew. Pirate Pew is old, blind, and partially deaf. He’s presumably based on the blind beggar Pew from Treasure Island. However, while Pew from Treasure Island is highly capable and thoroughly evil, Pirate Pew is weak, useless and harmless. Janice regularly ensures that Pirate Pew is not left out of things or forgotten about by the other pirates. On more than one occasion, she saves him from being left alone and marooned, as the pirates prepare to sail off without him.

Pirate Poppy. Janice first meets Poppy after she tires of her pirate friends’ timidity and wishes that she were friends with a brave pirate. Poppy drops out of the sky behind her on his strings, a generic pirate-puppet remarkable only in that he doesn’t look quite as cheap as the other puppets. He approaches her by asking for her help, telling her that the key to his chest is stuck under a stone in a nearby cave, and he can’t lift the stone without someone’s help. He explains that he’s asked other people for help, but nobody has been brave enough to come inside the cave with him. After Janice assists him, he becomes her new friend and soon proves much braver, competent, and protective than her old friends. Janice tries to make Poppy and Percy friends, but Percy refuses, telling her, “I don’t like Poppy. He frightens me” (clip 19, Mazatlán Tapes). Poppy, in turn, holds Percy in contempt as a coward.

On several occasions, Poppy suggests that Janice goes swimming in rough surf near jagged rocks, claiming that this is what a brave person would do. Janice refuses, on the grounds that, “that’s not brave, that’s stupid.”

At some point, Poppy becomes increasingly agitated and starts to rant about not knowing his own name. In one clip, he cries to Janice, “I don’t know what my name is. I don’t even know if I’m a man or a woman or a child. I don’t know where I was born or who my parents are or how I died” (clip 41 Chicago Tapes). In a later clip, he wails, “When I was buried on my island, nobody wrote anything, so I don’t know who I am” (clip 54 Chicago Tapes, clip 11 Gainesville Tapes).

A still later clip shows Janice and Percy standing on a tiny island with a single red poppy flower growing on it. Janice upends a rock to serve as a headstone and paints on it in black letters

POPY  
HE HAS GONE TO HEVEN  
STAY DOWN

Poppy is apparently not laid to rest, however, as he is glimpsed in later episodes standing on the tiny island with the single flower and painted headstone.

Spindly Jack. Spindly Jack is a pirate who was marooned on an island by his shipmates and starved to death. He’s hideously thin, but looks more like a monster than a victim of starvation, lacking ribs and having impossibly long limbs and fingers. He wanders his island and other places at night, complaining loudly, crying out things like, “I starved! I starved to death!” He seems to have a need for attention, accosting travelers and shouting into people’s windows, or invading their homes with his long, flexible arms and spidery fingers. If the people he accosts are unlucky, Spindly Jack will “get” them. It isn’t clear whether being “got” means being killed or being spirited away forever.

4\. Other Characters

This is not a complete list.

The Blind Ones. We do not know what the Blind Ones call themselves. “The Blind Ones” is what Percy calls them. They are emaciated and bedraggled puppets in ragged clothes, with long tangled hair and missing teeth. Their skin is albino white but their blind eyeballs have become shriveled and black. Their demeanor is sad and they speak softly when not screaming. Their depression may stem from their awful living conditions deep in the Canyon Caves. When they offer Janice and Percy hospitality, one miserably asks, “Would you like some disgusting cave beetles, crushed up horribly—all crunchy legs and nasty, gooey beetle-guts?” (clip 160, Osaka Tapes).

The Buried Ones. The Buried Ones speak in a soft, sibilant whisper, but they are able to make their whispering heard for long distances underground. Janice and Percy are near the mouth of the Canyon Caves when they first hear the whispered pleas, “Let us out! Let us out!”, and subsequently follow these whispers for miles underground. The Buried Ones are imprisoned in vaults under the caverns inhabited by the sad and dismal Blind Ones, who insist that “the Buried Ones” (their expression) must never be released. They say that the Buried Ones must stay where they are because they once did something bad, though it was so long ago that nobody remembers what it was.

Once the doors of the vaults are opened, the Buried Ones fall silent, never to speak again (in any verified clip). Instead, out of the doorway pours what looks like red and black jam mixed with custard, growing deeper as it spreads across the cave floor. This mess is later seen flowing from the mouth of the Canyon Caves.

Charlie: Very little is known about this character at present, although he appears in “crowd” scenes and at the Jolly Roger and Pieces of Nine. His most distinctive feature is his frozen expression of shocked delight, with his eyes wide open and his oversized mouth grinning wide. Charlie is dressed in a rough approximation of 16th-18th century clothes and may be a pirate. He has red hair and there are red circles on his cheeks. Unfortunately, the only extended dialog we have from Charlie is several minutes of intoning “ya ya ya” into the camera in a tight close-up (clip 1, Dunham Tapes).

The King in Yellow

Myth: If you see the King in Yellow, you instantly go violently insane. The King in Yellow is an unpleasant puppet that has done genuine psychological harm to children, but the urban legend that he cannot be looked at is untrue, at least in the case of any known clips.

The King in Yellow is swathed from head to toe in ragged yellow veils, along with either ribbons or bandages, and possibly flaps of dry skin. He appears by descending from above, like the Skin-Taker, though unlike the Skin-Taker, he never lands on the ground. Instead, he floats in the air on his strings, with his veils billowing around him. Though his limbs are free, he keeps his legs together and his arms by his sides as he slowly wriggles in place, bowing and twisting in the air. There are no verified clips in which he speaks. According to Pirate Pew, the King in Yellow likes scary stories.

Scarlet. (Audio only). Scarlet is a skinless woman or girl, presumably a ghost and presumably a victim of the Skin-Taker. She seeks entry to the Laughingstock, moaning, “Give me my skin! I want my skin! It’s so cold without my skin!” (Track 7, Fort William Tapes).

The Sleeping Princess of Castle Rillyay. The princess is seen only in dreams in any verified clip. She appears as a pale, blue-lipped woman lying underwater, apparently asleep (or dead—since puppets don’t breathe, it is difficult to tell the difference). She lies in the mud, surrounded by weeds and murk, with her long black hair waving around her. Two different puppets are used to represent the princess. In closer shots, her hair is unbound and untangled, but in longer shots, it is in thick ropey braids or tangles four or five times longer than her body. Usually, film footage of grotesque sea-life is projected behind or around her. Castle Rillyay itself appears as a pile of wet stones covered in barnacles and seaweed. It isn’t clear how large it is supposed to be and its apparent size is inconsistent from shot to shot. Pirate Percy gibbers in terror when the Laughingstock tells him that he has to go inside.

The Toads. The Toads are puppets made from dead toads, to which strings are attached. The Toads are anthropomorphized. They speak English, stand upright, use tools, and sometimes wear clothes or jewelry. The puppets’ mouths are opened and closed with wires in time to deep, guttural dialog. The Toads claim to have an underwater town named Yahanethly in the ocean not far from Candle Cove, and invite Janice and Percy to the Toad King’s birthday party there. Despite the Toads’ disgusting nature and habits, they are quite helpful to Janice and Percy, telling them about the underwater entrance to Smuggler’s Cave, and how to ward off Spindly Jack with drowned sailor’s hair. It is true that Janice and Percy would have been better off if the Toads hadn’t helped them to find Castle Rillyay, but they were only doing what Janice asked them to. In any case, Janice and Percy eventually shun the Toads in horror when they realize that they eat people, despite the Toads’ protestations that they wouldn’t eat friends like Janice and Percy.

Unverified: Some Toad puppets have their head or face replaced with that of a fish, stitched in place.

Myth: Kermit the Frog was on Candle Cove. Supposedly, there is a Candle Cove scene in which Kermit the Frog, with long sharp teeth, watches the viewer from the television. However, while a Sesame Street cross-over is technically possible (Sesame Street was first broadcast in 1969 and Candle Cove in the early 70s), it seems much more likely that supposed memories of this scene are due to ordinary childhood Sesame Street nightmares, which are then confused with Candle Cove.

Unverified. The Squid Prince. This is said to be a marionette made out of a dead squid. Glass eyes are implanted on the underside above the beak, to give the impression of a face surrounded by tentacles, which are draped around it like dreadlocks. In a bubbling voice, it says something along the lines of, “Come with us, Janice. You are in danger here. This is a place of madness”. Percy begs Janice to stay in Candle Cove and Janice tells the prince that her friends need her and she could never leave them.

Myth: Candle Cove characters never reference, or travel to, places other than Candle Cove.  
Islands referenced or visited include Carcosa, Castle Rillyay, Daisy Island, Dancing Bones Island, Howling Rock, Island of Sick Children, Kathuria, Monkey Island, Oriab, Spider Island, Thelarian, Whispering Island, Zar, and Zura. Ports referenced or visited include Candle Cove, Dielathlian, Kellerface, Puddingport, and Royalport. Other named places outside Candle Cove include: the Canyon Caves, the Cave of Fire, the Church of the Thunderclap, and the subaquatic town of Yahanethly. There are additionally numerous locations visited but not named.

Myth: Janice opens the Gate of Arcadia by saying the Lord’s Prayer backwards. The words of the magic song that opens the Gate of Arcadia are, “Fifteen men in a dead man’s chest. Yo-so-tho in a bottle of rum” (clip 122 Langford Tapes). This is clearly derived from the fictional sea-shanty “Dead Man’s Chest” in Treasure Island, which goes “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest. Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum.” “Yo-so-tho” is likely a reference to the Sumerian ferryman-demon Yog-Sothoth, called on by witches to provide transport to distant and exotic places, including Hell. The Song of Utnapishtim (Uruk, 4th millennium B.C., Armitage translation) states that, “Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate.” Yog-Sothoth usually manifests as a cloud of bubbles, glowing in unearthly colors. Sumerian priests believed that if you look at the reflections in the bubbles, you can catch glimpses of the torments of the damned.


End file.
